


family

by treesramblings



Series: twelve days of stuckony [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Brutal Murder, Dark, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Mind Control, Protective Bucky Barnes, Psychological Torture, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28382847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treesramblings/pseuds/treesramblings
Summary: Christmas isn't very joyful after the year Tony's had: he found out his father is a member of HYDRA, he spent three months in captivity because he refused to become a Nazi, he got an electromagnet shoved into his chest, and he hasn't seen his boyfriend in eight months.Tony is tired.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: twelve days of stuckony [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2073828
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91





	family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resurrectedhippo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectedhippo/gifts).



> thank you to [tempu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tempuwu) and [sapph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist) for betaing x
> 
> this is the darkest chapter of this series, but I think it's important to show. even though these are meant to be Christmas stories, they are interconnected, and not every story is positive. not every year has brightness. please, please handle with care.
> 
> know your triggers. read the notes. if you think I missed a tag, please let me know.
> 
> and if you're still okay to read after that, please enjoy x

It’s been eight months since Tony saw James last.

“Tony, babe, just come to New York. Daddy won’t mind; he’s happy to have you for Christmas. I don’t want you sitting in that mansion all by your lonesome.”

Tony sighs, holding the phone cord in between his fingers. He twists it absently, more out of idleness and agitation than actual need. “I know, Jan. I’m just not ready yet. There’s—someone I’m waiting on here.”

A deep exhale crackles across the line. Tony can imagine Janet, the phone cradle held in one hand and the receiver in the other as she lounges on her bed. “You’re always welcome here, Tony. Even if you just need a place for… you know.”

Tony turns in his chair and meets the faceplate of the Iron Man armor.

“Yeah. I know.”

* * *

_“Tony, happy birthday!” Obie says over the phone. “Twenty-one years old. What a big year, huh?”_

_“Sure is,” Tony grimaces._

_“And the demonstration? I couldn’t sleep until I found out how it went. How’d it go?”_

_“It went great. Looks like it’s gonna be an early Christmas.”_

_“Hey! Way to go, my boy!” Obie praises. There’s a slight pause, and then he continues, “Listen, Tony. Your dad wanted me to let you know—there are a few of his friends in Dubai right now. Think you can swing over and meet them? Your father thinks it’ll be good to help expose you to more of the real world. Shouldn’t be too long of a drive.”_

_Tony digs his fingernails into his palm. “Yeah, sure.”_

_“Fantastic! I’ll see you Friday, yeah?”_

_“Sounds great. Get some sleep, Uncle.”_

_“Goodnight, Tony. Be a good boy, now.”_

* * *

_Tony leaves Saudi Arabia shortly after he ends the call and heads over to Dubai, still in his Armani suit. He follows the Stark Industries employees to a meeting room in the back of a hotel and enters the room without so much as a knock._

_“Oh.” Tony blinks, taken aback at the sight of the Undersecretary of the World Security Council—and a Joint Chief of Staff—Alexander Pierce. “Hello, sir.”_

_“Mr. Stark! Please, come in. Take a seat.”_

_Tony hesitates, stepping into the room after a not-so-subtle push against his back. He moves over to a chair, shaking Pierce’s hand before sitting down._

_“How can I help you, Mr. Undersecretary?” Tony asks._

_“Call me Pierce, Mr. Stark, please. Um…” Pierce sits down in the chair in front of Tony, taking off his glasses and tucking them into his inside suit pocket. “I’ve been elected to break the good news to you.”_

_Tony perks up. “Good news, sir?”_

_Pierce smiles at him. “Yes, yes. I’ve been talking to your father about you. Now, I’m sure you know that your father is a dreamer. He looks at the big picture and doesn’t stop to think of all the tiny little pieces that need to fit together to sail a smooth ship. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, of course, but it’s not what you and I believe, I think.”_

_Tony has been raised around politicians. He understands the game; he understands what Pierce is trying to get at. And there’s something about the situation that’s telling Tony he needs to play along, needs to get more information. So he does._

_“No. You’re right; we’re realists. The big picture won’t function without all the small parts oiled. If just one piece rusts, the whole machine will stop running. You have to take care of the little parts.”_

_“Exactly,” Pierce says, gesturing toward Tony. “But you can only repair the little parts so much.”_

_“Sometimes you have to start over,” Tony adds._

_“You and I, we know that—despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric—that to build a better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down.” Pierce meets Tony’s gaze, his eyes serious, and says, “And that makes enemies.”_

_Tony feels his pulse begin to race. All of the little hints that Pierce is dropping are beginning to add up, and the picture they make isn’t something Tony wants to believe. A flickering image of James crosses his mind._

_“Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better.” Pierce places his elbows on his knees, leaning forward into Tony’s space, and Tony all of a sudden is realizing how much bigger Pierce is than him._

_“Better like the Jericho missile I demonstrated earlier today,” Tony whispers, and his voice cracks in the middle of the sentence._

_He’s dizzy._

_“And the idea that those people could be mad today, because of what you’ve done? Makes me really, really happy.”_

_He can feel the air crowding in around him._

_“Mr. Pierce. Sir.” Tony swallows. “What’s the good news?”_

_Pierce sits back in his chair. He crosses his hands over his stomach, his face unreadable as he examines Tony._

_“You have the foundation of knowledge you need to succeed from your father. He helped you to imagine the big picture. But you also look at that tiny picture, and you pick it up, piece by piece, until that big picture is whole. That’s what we need.”_

_Tony doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know who_ we _is, but he can feel the pressure in the room growing, growing, growing—_

_“That’s what HYDRA needs.”_

* * *

_Tony wakes up_ screaming _, his chest on fire, strapped down to a table and unable to move. He opens his eyes to see he’s in a medical room, and he doesn’t remember how he got here, or why he feels like his chest is pulverized, and he tries to look down to see—_

_“Oh, Tony,” Pierce says above him, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have tried to escape. I knew your father was too soft on you.”_

__

* * *

Here’s the thing: Tony knows James can’t trust him anymore. He doesn’t blame him for not wanting to be around someone who was complicit in HYDRA’s crimes—complicit in James’s servitude. If the situations were reversed, Tony wouldn’t want to see James, either.

(He knows that’s a lie. He would want to see James, even then. Tony would give anything to see James.)

His hand finds his chest and taps against it. The metallic plink from his fingertips thunders across the room.

James has a metal arm. He knows what it’s like to lose part of yourself. He knows what it’s like to have your body forcibly changed. James won’t judge Tony for what happened to him.

Even still, Tony can’t help but feel like this is—is different.

HYDRA has been exposed to the world. Countless high-ranking officials around the world are in hiding. Tony waits for the next call from SHIELD Director Fury telling him about another hideout that Iron Man needs to take out.

He wonders where his mom is.

He wonders if James is okay.

Restless and with nightmares plaguing his sleep, Tony falls under.

* * *

Thumping sounds wake him later that night. Tony rolls over, checking the clock. It pulses red, reading out _03:32 12/16/1991_.

A muffled scream echoes down the corridor.

Tony bolts upright in bed and scrambles over to his closet. He opens it and steps inside, a hidden panel detaching from the wall. Tony enters a code, and the Iron Man armor emerges and wraps around his skin.

It’s the only place Tony has felt comforted since James left.

He walks out of his room and follows the heat signatures on the HUD. Three assailants, one standing and two crouching, and they’re just… waiting in the middle of the foyer?

When Tony enters the room, his breath catches.

“These are the last two,” James says. Tony can’t decide where to look—at James, who Tony has missed more than air for months on end—or at his parents, the people who raised him, albeit with detachment and harsh words.

“The last two what?” Tony hears himself ask.

“The last two who hurt you.”

Tony is only twenty-one and he’s already been through enough to drag his soul through hell. There’s no love lost between him and his father—but his mother?

His mother tried her best. Tony knows this for a fact. He refuses to accept anything else.

“James?” Tony mutters. He pulls off the headpiece, setting it on the ground next to him. “James, please. Don’t—Not—”

James is more the Winter Soldier than James most days. He needs a mission to function. He needs a goal. He’s never been able to assign himself one, so Tony has always had to do it, but this speaks of a righteous fury that can only be attributed to a self-assigned mission.

_Oh, James._

Howard _laughs_ , hysterical and loud, and Tony jumps, meeting his eyes. They’re black, hard and mad and deranged, and Tony can’t even recognize him.

“James?” Howard cackles. “ _James_? Oh, that’s rich. Rich! You don’t know who he is, do you?”

He taunts Tony, his lips curling into a nasty sneer, and bites, “This here is James Buchanan Barnes. _Bucky_. Surely you remember me telling you about him as a child? The right hand man to Captain America. One of the best sharpshooters in the US Army. A Howling Commando. All burnt down, now, to the bare essentials, into a _machine_. He’s not even a person anymore. Just the Fist of HYDRA.”

Blistering hate, pure loathing, roars like a tornado through him. He hates this man, _Howard_ , never dad again. He hates him so _much_.

“It doesn’t matter who he was,” Tony snarls. “What matters is who he _is_. That’s all I care about.”

Howard laughs again, high-pitched giggles that sound like an old tv villain. “Oh, _son_. You’ve always been a naïve bastard, haven’t ya? We picked him up in 1945, not even a day after he fell from Zola’s train. We tortured him for _years_ , breaking him over and over, working to find _just_ the right formula to break him for good. And, oh, it was glorious the first time he killed a child without a flicker of emotion in his eyes. He was the perfect soldier for HYDRA. He spent _decades_ helping us build world peace.” Tony’s fists clench as best as they can in the gauntlets, and he takes a step forward toward Howard. “Ah!” but Howard interrupts, “I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet! He’s such a handsome man, isn’t he? The jawbone, the stubble, the long hair—it creates a beautiful image. Well, sometimes fighting can get the adrenaline up, and we can’t let our agents suffer, can we? Not when he’s so conveniently right there, ready and willing and _compliant_ —”

Howard cuts off. James cocks his gun, a beautiful Colt 1911, and holds it against the back of Howard’s head.

“You are hurting him,” James intones. His eyes flicker up to meet Tony’s, and it’s only then that he realizes he’d started crying while Howard had been speaking. Tears fall in rivets down his cheeks. “Cease or I will blast your wretched brains out of your skull.”

Howard laughs again and Tony looks back down to meet his father’s eyes. The smile on his face is cruel, madness overtaking his expression. “He’ll never love you.” His gaze never leaves Tony’s, not even for a second. “All he’s capable of is death and destruction. If he ever had the capacity for love, it’s been fucked out of him by human and machine alike. You can try to fix him, Anthony, and you’ll fail. You’ll fail just like you’ve failed in everything you’ve ever done, and my only regret is I won’t get to see it break you.”

A shot rings out, deafening, and Tony—Tony—

He watches as his father’s body falls to the ground, lifeless. He looks down at his feet, the tears blurring his vision, and his mind can’t comprehend the sight of his father’s eyeball staring up at him from the floor.

He staggers back and then falls to his knees, staring at the eyeball, and he reaches out to pick it up with a gauntlet.

It squishes between his fingers.

He’s going into shock. Tony knows he’s going into shock. He can’t breathe. He’s breathing too quickly. He can’t—

Tony hated his father.

He loved him, too.

 _Breathe, babe_ , a voice echoes in his ear, and Tony grabs hold of Janet’s voice, his best friend comforting him, and closes his eyes. He takes deep breaths, following the box breathing technique, and after four repetitions he opens his eyes.

“Mom,” he whispers. “Mom.”

He turns to her and tries to stay strong for her, but she’s his mother, and Tony has always been a mama’s boy.

“Mom, I—I don’t know what to do. Mom, I’m scared.”

Maria meets his gaze. Her eyes are bright with tears, but they’re dull. Dead.

No one’s home.

She shakes her head. “Why couldn’t you have been what your father wanted, Tony?”

“Wh—What?”

“Every death is on you, Tony. Every death that the Soldier completed is on you. Your Uncle Obie’s, your father’s, mine. Every one.”

Tony’s eyes widen, and he tries to scramble to his feet, trying to sprint to her before she does anything, screaming, “Wait, _no_ —”

His mother lies down next to Howard, puts her hand in his, and says, “Солдат. Активировать Спутник. Убивай меня.”

James’s face blanks. He turns the gun to her and shoots.

_“No! No, Mom, no! No, you can’t—Mom, no!”_

* * *

Tony lies on his bed. He’s in his shorts and nothing else, the blanket tucked up under him. James sits in the corner of the room, and he’s tense, like he’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

But Tony—

Tony just got him back.

He has Stark Industries. According to James, everyone who was involved in Tony’s kidnapping is now dead. Everyone.

He has Janet, back in New York. Rhodey, away on deployment. Pepper and Happy, currently heading SI in San Francisco.

Even if Tony hates James for killing his mom, for following her order, Tony still loves him.

He still wants James to stay.

“I’m so sorry,” James croaks.

“It wasn’t you.”

“But I still did it.”

A quietness takes over the room. Tony stares at the wall, but he watches James from his peripheral as he clenches and unclenches his hands.

“I don’t want to fight, James,” he whispers.

“Then let’s just. Be together. We can—We can figure it out along the way.”

“Okay,” Tony says. “Please, just. Don’t leave me. Not again. I can’t handle it if you leave me, James.”

“I’ll never leave you, Tony. I’m here until the last star in the sky collapses.”

James gets up and comes over to the bed, and Tony turns on his back, meeting James’s soft gaze.

He leans down. Kisses Tony’s arc reactor, soft and kind, like he’s not sure of his welcome.

Tony closes his eyes, grabs James’s hand, and cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Солдат. Активировать Спутник. Убивай меня. — Soldier. Activate Sputnik. Kill me.


End file.
